Stay on target

It’s such a shame that Victor Garber is leaving Legends of Tomorrow this season. He’ll be joining the cast of Hello Dolly on Broadway, which doesn’t leave any room to shoot a TV show. While we still don’t know what the show will do with Jax (maybe they’ll find him a new partner?), it is clearly getting everything it can out of Garber while he’s still here. I just hope they find an excuse to make him sing one more time before he leaves. While we didn’t get to hear his beautiful voice in this episode, we did get the funniest Titanic joke ever. “I refuse to set foot on the Titanic! Whoever built that ship should be shot.” How long do you think they’ve been holding onto that one? Is it blunt and obvious? Yes, but that’s what makes it so funny.

The Titanic references didn’t end there. This episode also starred Billy Zane as P.T. Barnum, who appeared right after the Titanic joke. This is a show that knows exactly what it’s doing. For its second episode, Legends of Tomorrow continues to be about just how bad the team can screw things up. Even when they aren’t explicitly going against the Time Bureau, they manage to take a simple mission and make it nine times more complicated. That’s an exact figure. A fun running joke throughout the episode is that every time they check in on the mission, the scale of the anachronism has tripled. First, all they need to do is to P.T. Barnum’s circus and retrieve a saber-toothed tiger. The job is made even easier by the fact that Ray has invented a shrink ray.

Nick Zano as Nate Heywood/Steel (Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW)

The anachronism grows a little bit worse when Ray mixes up his controls and accidentally sets a giant saber-toothed tiger loose. From there, the entire mission spirals out of control. The tiger is actually the least of the Legends’ worries. Bringing Amaya back on board to deal with the animal nature of the mission opens up a wound for Nate. He gets drunk in a bar and reveals his powers, along with spilling the beans about Jax and Ray’s abilities. P.T. Barnum, in desperate need of an attraction, captures Jax, Ray, Nate and Amaya. If the entire season is about how bad the Legends can break time before fixing it, that’ll be OK with me. It’s fantastic fun to watch.

What’s less fun is Nate’s constant whining and fragility. At first, you feel for the guy. We see the night they broke up. Amaya saw how amazing her granddaughter is as Vixen in Detroit. (Seriously, The CW Seed animated series is really good, and Megalyn Echikunwoke’s Mari McCabe deserves her own live-action series.) Amaya realized that if she stayed with Nate, Mari would never exist. She left without giving him a reason why. It’s understandable that he’d be hurt. At this point, he’s just an annoying guy who can’t get over his ex. This series is all about its corny jokes, but Nate constantly trying to assert his masculinity when he’s too hungover to steel up (get it?) cross the line from funny to annoying. Nate was cool last year. Don’t reduce his personality to a bitter, jilted ex.

Billy Zane as PT Barnum (Photo: Dean Buscher/The CW)

Billy Zane is absolutely perfect as the villainous P.T. Barnum in this episode. What really makes him work is that he’s not completely evil. He’s just self-serving. He’s desperately trying to save his circus by putting on a great show for people. Since there are a lot of performers relying on his circus, you can absolutely see where he’s coming from. It’s possible to get behind him, even if his methods put him firmly in the “bad guy” category. That’s what makes a great villain, and it’s something you don’t see that often on this show. Or any of the CW superhero shows, really. Of course, he can’t be too likable. We still need to root for our heroes, such as they are. Zane’s confidence, and snide delivery of every line sells just what a douche this guy is. We may see where he’s coming from, but we still want the Legends to escape. In the end, the show gives everyone a win, in a surprisingly satisfying way. The Legends use their powers to save each other, giving Barnum’s audience one spectacular show, and a guaranteed audience for whatever he can cook up the next week. It’s a fun, energetic superhero action scene. As a bonus, we also got to see Victor Garber dress as a clown. They really are making the most of his presence while they still have it.

What’s even more fun is the fight between Sara and Agent Sharpe. She once again comes to clean up the Legends’ mess and prove to Rip that the Bureau is better suited to the task of cleaning up history. This show has great action in general, but the scenes where it’s just Sara fighting someone one-on-one are truly special. That’s when you can see that someone on staff is really good at fight choreography. The two are well-matched against each other, and there’s even a little bit of comedy when they both have to take a water break. Of course, the rest of the team manages to fix everything before Sharpe can prove her point and arrest Sara. She hints at a coming threat that she doubts the Legends won’t be able to handle. For a second, it looks like the Legends take her concern seriously, but they laugh at the idea, and at the audience for thinking this show would take anything seriously. I love this show.

Of course, the ending scene makes it clear that they should be paying at least a little bit of attention. A mysterious figure in a purple robe resurrects Kuasa, the main villain from season one of Vixen. (Seriously, go to CW Seed and watch that show.) Kuasa is Mari McCabe’s sister, and therefore Amaya’s granddaughter. She feels the Anansi Totem should have gone to her. It’s a good thing Amaya decided to stay on for now. The bigger question is the identity of the woman in the purple robe. She mentions being a follower of Mallus, a name that means nothing to us right now. She could be the Time Trapper, a powerful DC villain with a scary amount of control over time. The Time Trapper never shows their face, always draped in a robe. This character could either be a follower of the Arrowverse’s version of the Time Trapper, or she could be the villain herself. Either way, that’d make a great villain for the Legends to fight. Especially since she can bring people back from the dead. It’ll be exciting to see how the Legends manage to defeat such a powerful enemy. After they screw everything up, of course.